


A Road Well Traveled

by PaddieCake



Series: Hargreeves Family Spaghetti Bowl of Fun [10]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, I can't believe that's actually a tag, I don't think, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Murder, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Klaus finally takes off his shoes, Quiet, References to Drugs, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sweeney Todd References, i don't have any fun tags for this, not that dark, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23545996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddieCake/pseuds/PaddieCake
Summary: Reginald and Klaus meet again in the afterlife.They travel down a road, and have a few conversations.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Reginald Hargreeves
Series: Hargreeves Family Spaghetti Bowl of Fun [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674742
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100





	1. Alone

Klaus had been trying to get Five out of the way of Harold's gun. A shout, a sizzling hot pain in his forehead, the cold stone beneath him… 

He startled awake, limbs sprawled out in front of him. He sat up slowly, looking around with wide eyes. His shoulders slumped as he realized everything around him was monochrome. 

"Oh, this place again." He muttered, rubbing his head. "Wait, shit  _ no _ !" He stumbled to his feet, cursing under his breath. 

How did he get back last time? He just  _ did _ , right? Just started fading back into life. He hadn't even wanted to… Now he did, though.

Klaus stood there a moment, squinching his eyes, clenching his hands, concentrating on… his body? The one that was still… what, back on Earth? The living realm? Whatever normal life was called. 

He knew he probably looked constipated.

That brought back some memories of a hippo for  _ some _ reason. He probably took much speed.

He was thinking about centipedes now, great. 

Klaus blinked his eyes, thankful it was just an overactive imagination. He was pretty sure he was sober.

His head was foggy though.

Probably the bullet to the brain.

Klaus sighed, trying to shake the fog out of his head. He needed to concentrate, so once again he stood there looking constipated, trying to get back to his family.

Figures when he  _ wanted _ to go back he couldn't. 

Klaus groaned loudly when it didn't work. 

"Uh, little girl? Jeez this is awful. Hey! Wherever you are can you send me back?" He said, calling out, looking around the empty road he was on.

Klaus heard some rustling and turned around, expecting the little girl from last time.

He kind of thought a cowboy would be fun.

One would think the constant disappointments Klaus had faced throughout most of his life he'd be used to it by now. 

He wasn't.

"Obnoxiously loud as always, Number Four."

Klaus sighed, raising his eyes. "What, could you possibly want from me now?" He sighed.

Reginald looked a bit taken aback "I thought you could use the company." He said with a shrug. "You'll be here for awhile, given your injury."

"I can think of at least ten other people I'd rather be in the company of, and at least five of them have tried to kill me in some capacity. And one of those five is Diego." Klaus added. "My own  _ brother _ ." He said, voice dramatically weepy.

"And dramatic." Reginald noted, eyeing Klaus up and down. 

Klaus closed his eyes, choosing to ignore him. "Well last time I was here it didn't exactly stick, so I'm hoping I'll just… poof back." He added. "But I was shot this time, so… ("Number Four."). Klaus ran a hand through his hair trying to think. "I think they tried giving me CPR? No one's gonna do that, I'm just dead…" he muttered. 

Reginald eyed Klaus with curiosity. "What do you mean by last time?"

Klaus groaned, running a hand over his face. He didn't want to explain this to Reginald of all people. "You know what? No. It's not really any of your business, is it?"

Klaus began walking off in a random direction, no rhyme or reason to it.

"I've spent your entire lives training you, of course it's my business." He replied smoothly, following after Klaus at a steady pace. 

"Ah, right, of course. Training us. Doing what's best for us, of course." Klaus muttered, stopping short as he suddenly realized he didn't know where he was walking to. 

"It isn't my fault you were too frightened to take your training seriously, Number Four."

"And there's no way you've done anything to make it worse. I can't believe we're having this conversation again."

Reginald's jaw ticked slightly, slowly turning to look at Klaus. "Again, last time? Perhaps you could fill me in, Number Four."

Klaus looked over at his father, sighing deeply. He was about to explain everything. But shook his head. "Nah, it's pointless." He said, waving him off. 

Reginald muttered something about Klaus being an insolent brat, but he didn't pay it much mind.

Klaus looked around again, trying to find something even remotely familiar. "So how do I get back." He muttered, plopping onto the ground.

Reginald looked at Klaus, "Get up,we walk this way." He said, nodding towards a wooded trail. 

Klaus sat up a bit, having been resting his chin in his hand. He followed Reginald's gesture with his eyes, looking down at himself. "I'm so glad I wore pants." He muttered, pushing himself off the ground.

"I'm surprised you're not putting up a fight." Reginald gave Klaus an impressed look.

Klaus shrugged as he headed down the trail slowly. He twisted his engagement ring absently around his finger. His mind was more occupied with getting back to his family. A shudder ran down his spine. He didn't want them to worry, to grieve. Five already had to bury them once. And Dave… 

Klaus clutched at his chest. He knew how Dave would feel.

Hopefully it would end in another reuniting. 

Klaus  _ really _ hoped they wouldn't try burying him. But Ben was there, he knew there was a chance he could come back, hopefully they'd wait, or Diego knew he didn't want to be buried in the first place. 

Klaus had no idea how long he would take to come back.

If he even came back. 

What would happen if his body was destroyed?

Klaus ran a hand across his forehead, but didn't feel anything that could indicate he got shot, so that was good.

Then again, this wasn't really his body. Just his soul. Consciousness?

"Awfully quiet, Number Four."

"Just trying to figure out if we're souls, consciousness, or something else."

"You should be using this time wisely. You should focus on working through whatever power you have that seems to allow you to come back to life."

Klaus couldn't help but roll his eyes, not that Reginald was wrong. That was always the frustrating thing, wasn't it. The things he said weren't necessarily wrong, even if the way he went about it usually was. Or the  _ way _ he said things.

Klaus groaned.

"I wish I had known about such a possibility before, I would have liked to have studied it."

Klaus stiffened, turning to look at his father. "How would you have done that?" He asked, laughing a little hysterically. 

"Blood and tissue samples, of course. I wouldn't risk killing you. You would have been too valuable."

"Oh, of  _ course _ !"

"I didn't want you children  _ dead _ ." Reginald sneered. "But I did want to understand your powers. Have  _ you _ understand your powers. Of course the two with the most basic powers were the only ones with any sense of determination…

"You know I didn't enjoy losing Number Five or Number Six. But given Number Five's penchant for dramatics he was too much of a wild card. The team worked better without him."

"It works better with all of us, minus you." Klaus said. "It's better now, because we're an actual family, crazy that."

"With Number Six… That wasn't your powers, right? I only expected you to conjure him for missions." He said.

Klaus' eyes went wide. "Of course. Of  _ course _ you only thought about how you could use your dead son on a  _ mission _ !"

"If you had control over your powers it shouldn't have matt-"

"Oh shut  _ up _ !" Klaus snarled, turning his head to look back at Reginald. "Why should I tell you anything? You tortured us, lied to us. Why do you deserve any an...swers." Klaus didn't see him.

"Dad?"

But he got no response. The sky was still grey, just like everything else nearby. 

No Reginald.

Klaus blinked, shoulders slumping.

He thought he should feel relieved. Dad not there to bother him. Make him upset when he was already dead.

But that didn't make the sudden silence any less strange.

Klaus looked down at the trail he'd been following. Behind him were two sets of faded footprints, in front of him trees and dirt.

Klaus sighed, continuing his trek forwards.

Alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only going to be a few chapters, hopefully four, because Klaus.


	2. Never Changing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reggie is back, and he finally gets some answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never intended Reginald to find out. I liked the idea of him not being worthy of it, but that was back before I had planned to make this a full blown series x3.

Klaus whistled to himself as he kept walking.

And walking.

And walking. 

The trees didn't change from the dull grey that began as. The trail didn't seem to grow any shorter, nothing changed. The occasional whistle of a bird, the rustle of a faint wind jostling the leaves, but otherwise nothing. 

Just complete silence.

It was something Klaus had spent over fifteen years trying to achieve with drugs. But now he missed the noise, at least the noise that accompanied his family, at any rate.

The silence was deafening, and the view boring.

Eternal peace  _ was _ overrated.

"Ahem."

Klaus shrieked at the sudden appearance of his father walking beside him, the silence gone, replaced with a shriek, and a grumpy old man's huff of annoyance.

"Where did you…" Klaus pointed in a few directions, as if trying to figure out the trail he took.

"I'm surprised you brought me back." Reginald said, as if he hadn't been gone for the last…

Well Klaus had no concept of time, here.

Wait,  _ did _ Klaus bring him back? Was he that desperate for company?

Wasn't he usually desperate for company?

Not lately, he supposed. But his usual company was gone, now. 

Klaus sighed.

"I want to know how I failed." Reginald said quietly, almost apologetic, continuing their previous conversation.

Klaus raised an eyebrow, he didn't buy it for a second.

"Obviously I went wrong, if you were able to save Number Six, and about the 'Apocalypse'. You never told me how when you conjured me last.

"I wanted to know how you managed to do that all without any input from me by the sound of it." He sounded haughty, as if the idea that  _ he _ wasn't involved at all was a miracle.

Klaus stopped walking, digging the toe of his sneaker into the ground. "You didn't answer my question."

Reginald blinked back in surprise, he didn't seem to have an answer to that.

Klaus scoffed.

Reginald cleared his throat. "I suppose you won't ever think I deserve answers, but I'd like them."

Klaus mulled that over in his mind. He was alone right now, save for his dad. He looked over to him, eyeing him up and down.

Klaus lolled his head back.

"Time travel. We didn't actually prevent the Apocalypse, we just time traveled to avoid it. Five did some magic math. Manipulated a timeline that benefited us the most."

"He  _ created _ a timeline?" Reginald looked impressed.

"With math. " Klaus agreed. 

"He managed to…"

Klaus snorted "What, can't imagine one of your kids doing something so great without your help?"

Reginald didn't answer, merely continued forward with an undistinguished sound.

That set Klaus off into a fit of laughter. "Wow, you really can't!"

Reginald was clearly unimpressed, which just made it funnier in Klaus' opinion. 

Klaus was still giggling as he continued. "In the original one I died, spoke to you. It's when we figured out you killed yourself." He sighed, playing with his ring. "The Commission only just caught up with us. It was blown up by Five but they must have done repairs." Klaus said. 

"So you haven't stopped it, or them… " Reginald murmured, letting the information sink in for a moment. "What caused it?"

"You know, you should have been a barber." Klaus pointed out, purposely ignoring the question. "People would probably end up baked into pies, but…"

Klaus was silent for another minute before answering his question seriously. "You did." Klaus said with a shrug. "Your inability to be a decent human being, making  _ us _ incapable of being decent human beings! That's what led to the Apocalypse."

Klaus looked over to Reginald, confusion written all over his bemonocled face.

"Vanya found out about her powers…" Klaus continued, still watching his father. "Well, no…. Someone named Harold Jenkins did. Had some grudge against us, creepy murder shrine... He got a hold of information, manipulated her to stop taking her meds… Moon exploded." He made a 'poofing' motion with his hands, sound effects and all. 

Reginald stilled, eyes wide. "She was never supposed to get that powerful. Not even off her medicine. I didn't expect it to be her…"

"Why'd you stop training her?" Klaus asked suddenly. "You had to have a reason."

"She was too powerful, out of control, emotionless. Her medicine was supposed to suppress it, make her safe. She'd killed a few nannies. She's why I made Grace in the first place."

Klaus nodded, dragging his feet into the dirt. "Why'd you think she wouldn't get that powerful?"

"I expected her training to go better than it had. She could have hurt me, hurt you children."

"When we conjured you, I think we assumed you doped her up because you knew. She was  _ pissed _ ." He laughed, elongating the word. "Didn't blow up the moon though. Because we were actually able to help her."

"I don't understand why she would be so upset in the first place. She was never 'tortured' as you put it."

Klaus looked at his face, trying to find some sense of self-awareness, but Reginald seemed  _ genuinely _ confused.

Klaus scoffed. "Figures. It's amazing you don't understand the things you've done wrong.

"You forced her into isolation. Made her feel useless and unimportant.  _ Told us _ that she was 'ordinary'. We were awful to her. She did shit too, you know, but… Being left out, she couldn't even take family pictures with us. Just because she wasn't in the Academy doesn't mean she wasn't family."

"So you let your emotions get in the way of your decisions." Reginald seemed to decide, ignoring the rest of what Klaus said. Why, he couldn't figure out. 

Klaus kept walking, not acknowledging him right away. "We didn't 'let' our emotions get in the way. We just  _ have _ emotions. Just because  _ you _ don't feel anything doesn't mean the rest of us don't… "

Reginald looked straight ahead, jaw clenched. "You know nothing, Number Four."


	3. Well Worn and Colorful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rehashed conversation, and a bit of color.

Klaus let his father's words settle as they continued their walk. He frowned, watching the ground. He could have sworn the grey was a slightly different shade now, but it was probably just his mind playing tricks on him.

"What I know is that you didn't give a shit about us beyond our powers, and that you'd rather destroy our lives than deal with the consequences of your training."

"Of course I cared about you. I gave you a roof over your heads, food in your stomachs, and I  _ tried _ to educate you. Your brains and bodies."

Klaus rubbed his head, trying to remove the echoes of pain just beneath his skin. "Come on. Once we stopped being what you thought we should be, when we stopped being complacent, when we became useless to you, you abandoned us. To drugs… vigilantism, Hollywood, the moon, the Apocalypse… death…" 

"It's not my fault you were resistant to training."

"Luther wasn't, you didn't have to send him away. And Five wasn't...and you could have brought him back." Klaus said darkly.

Reginald stopped short. "And how would I have done that?" 

"You had that Briefcase, you knew about the Apocalypse. Even if you didn't know Five was there you could have looked for him." Klaus said.

"I couldn't find him. But I did look. For the better part of a year I looked."

Klaus stilled at that. He was honestly surprised their father had even tried.

"I couldn't pinpoint a location, and I had to give up. I did assume he was dead after a while."

Klaus gave him a stiff nod, and they continued onward. The silence was oddly comforting, given present company. 

He looked around, the grey all consuming. He paused a moment, to stare at a leaf near his face, trying to compare it to the grey of the leaves surrounding it.

He took it carefully, and it seemed the shade shifted. He ran a thumb over it and it seemed to shift again, a strange brown tint to it that hadn't been there before.

And then all at once it was bright green. Klaus jumped back, dropping the leaf, now grey again as if nothing had happened.

"Maybe I  _ am _ high." Klaus muttered, rubbing his eyes.

"Don't be stupid, boy. You're in the Land of the Dead, of course your powers are stronger here." Reginald huffed.

"Is that the official name of this place?" Klaus murmured, scratching his cheek absently. He placed a hand against the tree, the grey shifting into faded browns and yellows.

"I never thought you could bring the dead back to life, but here, I suppose…"

Klaus removed his hand and it immediately turned back to the dull grey it began as. "Do you have any idea how far my powers can go? Any of our powers?"

"I always thought you and Number Six had the most potential. I know he tried, on occasion, to conjure other beings, but those tentacles were always the most useful. Your abilities go beyond the physical realm around you. Numbers One, Two, and Three reached their potential early on."

Klaus scoffed "It's like you can't say anything nice about us."

"You, you had potential, and neither of us got to see it."

"I'm not having this conversation again." Klaus said, brushing his hand along the trees he passed, watching the colors shift faintly. "Do you think this translates into the… living world?"

Reginald watched the trees a moment, clearly considering the question. "Like I said, I think your abilities are just stronger when you're surrounded by death."

Klaus frowned, stuffing his hands into his pockets. 

"It's why it was so important for you to get over your petty fears."

"I was _ scared _ . You could have tried to make it less terrifying and you didn't. It just goes back to you not realizing that people have emotions."

"That get in the way o-"

Klaus waved a hand, and Reginald disappeared. He looked at the spot he had been standing on. The conversations were just repeating themselves. 

It was pointless.

Klaus wanted the company though.

He sighed, looking down at the path below him, the grey darker where he stood. He bent down, placing a hand on the grass, watching as the colors burst into life beneath his hands.

If Reginald was right this power wouldn't continue to exist once he woke up.

If he woke up.

He glanced down at his feet, undoing the shoe laces and pulling them off. 

Socks tucked into his shoes, Klaus could feel the warm grass beneath his feet, the colors fading in and out where he stepped. 

He frowned, the sound of whispering reached his ears. Faint, but there. Straight on ahead.

Klaus laced his sneakers together and slung them over his shoulders, and kept walking.


	4. A Road Diverged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus wakes up.
> 
> Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! I'm going to be finishing up Running Just as Fast as We Can now that this is done :3.
> 
> Also I managed to make this exactly 4k words!!
> 
> Although my word processor and AO3 have different counts x3.

Klaus walked on for the better part of an hour. He enjoyed the silence up until his mind started focusing on things it shouldn't be.

Dave's death. Vietnam. The Mauseum, capital 'M', rated R for "really terrifying".

Needless to say Klaus wasn't coping well with being dead and alone, at the moment.

Klaus sighed. "Sure, why not?" 

"Hey, dad?"

The man was unimpressed by his sudden disappearance, and even moreso by the mud now coating Klaus' bare feet.

Either way the man indulged his son. "Yes?"

"What did the numbers mean? Why didn't you give us names?"

Klaus had never really cared before. Ghosts shouting a number or a name, it didn't make a difference. But he did _like_ the name Grace had given him, and well… Grace had a name before he did, and that was just strange, wasn't it?

Reginald sighed, looking up at the grey sky. "The numbers don't mean anything. Just convenience. I had your names picked out based on your powers, I thought that was enough."

Klaus doubled over into a fit of giggles. "Come on, you really thought calling one of us 'The Boy' was _good_ enough?"

Reginald looked offended, brow furrowed, lips pursed. "They got the job done."

"Oh, yeah, sure." Klaus agreed, still laughing to himself, waving Reginald off.

More silence.

"That ring is new, is it not?" Reginald asked, noticing Klaus playing with it.

Klaus looked down at it, the black metal matching the setting perfectly. "Yeah, it's new."

"So you managed to find someone in the right timeline, then, good." 

"Nope." Klaus said, popping the 'p' extra loudly. "He was revived by The Commission. He's alive."

Reginald frowned as the two of them slowed to a stop. "If I hadn't killed him you…"

"Wanted to bring him back with me. Or maybe I would have stayed. We… I wanted to talk about it with him. But well, you killed him so."

More silence.

"I was worried you wouldn't have been able to help your siblings."

"You were worried I wasn't going to try and help stop the Apocalypse." Klaus corrected. "But if I hadn't time traveled, or if I didn't think to get sober, nothing would have changed. Nothing _did_ change. The world still ended… still might." Klaus said.

The duo stopped, a fork in the road. One still, grey, the other a slow gradient into color.

"Would you have killed Patrick? Or Claire?"

"A plane ride isn't the same as time travel " Reginald said. "And your… Dave… He seemed… insignificant. If I had thought you would have traveled back on your own, with or without him, I wouldn't have killed him. I was sure you would stay behind, though."

"And I could just conjure him anyway, right?" Klaus scoffed.

"There is also that."

"I guess this is me." Klaus said at last, motioning towards the trail, slowly gaining more color.

"Indeed."

Klaus waited, and when Reginald didn't say anything Klaus walked forward.

"Hopefully I'll never see you again." Klaus said with a bright smile. He turned around in time to hear Reginald say:

"You'll need me again, I'm sure."

Klaus snorted "Asshole!" He called, banishing him before he could respond. 

The ground beneath his burst into bright greens, the flowers and trees surrounding him gaining color. Klaus could only look on in awe at the sudden burst of life and color around him.

The colors became more vibrant with each step. Brighter and brighter. 

Soon everything was blinding white. Klaus put an arm up trying to block out the light, but it didn't help.

As it dulled his eyes settled onto a white room with a small bed, a body laying still on it. Klaus moved closer to it, the body was breathing, but eerily still. 

Klaus wished he could be surprised to say it was him, but he wasn't. He put a hand out, reaching towards his own shoulder (and wasn't _that_ a trip). He could feel a strange thrumming going through his body. He would have kept going but suddenly someone entered the room, clipboard in hand.

Klaus backed away, stumbling into a wall, his body buzzing strangely.

Not uncomfortably though. 

Actually it felt pretty nice. 

Cool.

He shrugged, looking at the sudden phone he had going through his back. 

Klaus looked back at his body, watching the doctor checking his vitals. Probably trying to see if he was conscious.

From here Klaus could see the bullet wound in his forehead was gone, face cleaned of any blood. And no scars!

Klaus was pleased. Hopefully the assholes holding him weren't inclined to ruin his good looks.

And then everything was dark.

"Oh, shit. Did I die again?" Klaus asked himself.

But no, he could hear another voice. Well multiple voices, actually. 

"Uh, hello?" Klaus asked, "yoo-hoo, can someone hear me? Because that would be so weird."

Klaus heard the voices stop, the sound of something clicking. A strange sound, a dial tone? 

Then suddenly it felt like the world exploded in sound, causing Klaus to Yelp. "What the Hell?" He muttered, trying to see something in the darkness.

And then a voice that sent a calm warmth through him.

"K-Klaus?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for the comments and kudos, they're so nice <3.


End file.
